re the ns_uuencode patch, i didnt apply it because it was unclear to me exactly how to do so.

same for the -g flag.

Its not that i dont mind patching things, or want an out of the box solution, but i DO want something that will basically WORK out of the box, even if I have to customise it later to do what i want. ie it would be nice if the aolserver would actually run so i could then have a working system to work with!

With the amount of free software out there, it is a huge deterrent if something does not at least compile and install and work in some basic way out of the box... because if it doesnt, how do i know whether it is worth wasting more time on, or whether i should try something else?

if I had a working aolserver i would at least be able to experiment a bit with the openACS packages and see if i can tolerate the tcl api. but thats impossible if the aolserver doesnt work out of the box